


Snow in September

by iloveyourscratchybeard



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s08e13 Per Manum, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 13:38:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16833688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iloveyourscratchybeard/pseuds/iloveyourscratchybeard
Summary: One word prompt for "Snowman." Set sometime after the events of "Per Manum." This story is dedicated to everyone I've hurt with the angst of "Moirae." This is my fluffy apology.





	Snow in September

“Scully, didn’t you ever have snowball fights as a kid?” he asks as she sends another wad of paper into the bookcase behind the trash can, falling alongside a pile of another dozen discarded paper balls from the report she was trying to close out. He winces.

“Actually, despite all of the moving we did as a kid, we rarely lived where there was enough snow to stick during winter. We spent most of our time on the coasts.”

“So no snowball fights? No sledding?” She shakes her head as he continues, “No homemade sno-cones or snow angels?” Mulder is in disbelief. He may have had a shitty childhood, but all of these things are a rite of passage.

Scully shrugs her shoulders and turns back to her report. She just wants to finish this thing up so she can start her weekend with a long, hot bath, and with all of Mulder’s jabbering, she can’t seem to string a full sentence together.

A minute later, she’s startled by his hot breath on her neck as he leans down behind her. “Scully? Have you ever built a snowman?” She lets out an exasperated sigh. “Mulder, Skinner’s waiting on this. If I don’t finish the report on my medical findings, we’re never going to be able to go home!”

He raises his hands up and starts backing out of the room. “Okay, okay….I’ll just give you a few minutes of peace and quiet so you can concentrate.” He grabs his coat and heads to the door before turning back to her at the doorway and winking. “I’ll be back in a few to help you wrap things up.” And he’s gone.

Scully rolls her eyes and tries to gather together all the focus one can muster after a long week of cramped rental cars, shitty motels, and autopsies. What she wouldn’t do for a hot meal, some cozy sweats, and a good book. Any reading that didn’t involve studies of how extremely high altitudes (i.e. being in a spacecraft for days at a time) affected hemoglobin concentration sounded like a fine change of pace for her.

Thirty minutes later, Scully was finally, finally, putting the final notes on her report when she heard Mulder exit the elevator on his way back into the office. She looked up as he was rounding the corner and her jaw dropped.

“Mulder- what is that?”

In his arms was a very large styrofoam cooler. He didn’t answer her, just wagged his eyebrows as he walked over to deposit it on his desk. “Finish up the report yet?” he asked casually.

“Yes-” she drew out slowly, lowering her eyebrows at him and pursing her lips as she stood to investigate what he was up to.

“Now, now, now…” he shielded his surprise from her by moving to stand in front of her, causing her nose to briefly crash into his tie. “Sorry,” he smiled and grabbed her elbows to steady her against him.

“Mulder, what are you up to?” she asked, raising on her tiptoes pointlessly to sneak a peek over his shoulders. The curiosity was getting the better of her. Even though she tried to play it cool, Mulder knew that she loved surprises.

“Now, Miss Scully, good things come to those who are patient.” Another wag of his eyebrows and she hated how much he was enjoying her eagerness to get at his little surprise.

He leaned in close to her face, studying her eyes for a moment, and then reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

“I was thinking about what you said earlier and I - um, well, I thought we could kill two birds with a single stone. So, I ran to the store real quick and got you this.” He held up a plastic bag from the corner market in his hand and waved it in front of her face.

“What’s in the bag?” she quirked her right brow at him.

“Well the investigator in me suggests you open the bag and find out for yourself.”

She wanted to scoff at him but was too curious, so she reached inside and procured a box of raisins and a snack mix of baby carrots. “Okay.” She looked up at him in utter confusion.

“And-” he reached in his coat pocket and pulled out two twigs and what looked like a piece of rubber from a blown tire. Scully was sure Mulder had finally lost his marbles.

“I don’t get it.”

Mulder held up a single finger, continuing to draw out the longest reveal in history. He then reached inside his inner coat pocket, and like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, he revealed two paper cones and a small water bottle of red liquid.

Scully was utterly and completely lost.

Mulder watched her face with entirely too much satisfaction that she hadn’t figured out his plan. He set everything out in a row on his desk and then picked up a pencil in his hand and started twisting it in the air. “With the flick of my wand and the magic words….‘presto magnifico- let there be snow!’” He tapped the styrofoam box twice with his pencil and then slowly lifted the lid to reveal several gallons of very finely shaved ice.

“Mulder- it’s September. There is no snow.”

“Ah-ha, Miss Scully. That’s why it’s called magic!” He lowers his voice to a whisper, “And some help from the guy that runs the Kona Ice food truck down the street.”

Taking her by the shoulders, he guides her around his desk and pulls out his chair so she can take a seat. Then he flips the lid upside down on his desk and scoops several heaping piles of ice on it.

“Scully- would you like to build a snowman?”

She is in shock. “Are you serious?”

“Hell yeah, I’m serious. I brought all the components for a perfect snowman to you, M'lady. We’ve got raisins for eyes and a mouth, a carrot nose, twigs for arms, and while there were no miniature top hats lying around, this little black piece of rubber looks awfully majestic.”

Scully is in awe of the creativity of this man and the lengths he will go to make her smile. “Mulder-” she doesn’t even know what to say.

“Scully, I’d start rolling if I were you because pretty soon we’re not gonna have snow anymore, we’re just gonna have….well, a wet and ruined desk.”

For the first time all week, her heart feels light and she’s smiling, really smiling. He perches on the corner of the chair beside her rolling a miniature ball for a head to accompany her larger body balls and then they layer them on top of one another. She grabs the box of raisins and pops a few eyeballs into the head while Mulder tries his best to jab a baby carrot into the center. The weight of it rolls the head right off the body and Scully snickers under her breath. She extracts the carrot from the head and brings it to her mouth, biting it directly in half before reinserting it carefully into the newly attached head. Mulder watches her mouth with amazement and then nods his approval at her methods. A few twigs and a tire fragment later, and Scully’s first snowman stands before them in all of its crooked half-melty glory.

“I think he needs a name,” Scully giggles.

“Hmmm….how about 'Ice Flukey’? I mean, he’s kind of horrifying.”

“Stop! I think he’s cute.”

“Oh- wait! I forgot the finishing touch!” Mulder reaches into his pants pocket and procures several sunflower seeds. He presses them gently into the snowman’s body. “Buttons. Now he’s styling.” Then he rounds the desk to grab the remaining items from his bag of tricks. He fills the two paper cones with the remaining ice from the cooler and then opens the water bottle of mysterious red liquid and douses the top of each cone.

“Voila! Homemade sno-cones”

“Mulder- this….” her voice breaks a little. She’s exhausted and her hormones still don’t feel like they’ve equalized after the failed attempts at in-vitro. She’s had the emotions of pregnancy, without the blessing of actually being pregnant. “This means a lot.”

“I just wanted to give you a little something. After all you’ve been through lately- and…” he feels suddenly shy. “I just want you to know. There are good things, too. I mean, we spend so much time in the dark chasing after mutants and monsters, but I want you to never lose sight of that. I want you to have good things. I want you to laugh and eat sno-cones. I want to help you build a snowman, and I want… I want us to have it all.” He places his hand delicately under her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Just- tell me you won’t lose hope. We can still have it all.”

She’s crying at his words, at the implication that he wanted the baby just as badly as she did. They struggled to talk about it, but she knew he was trying. In the thousands of little ways that were purely Mulder, he was trying to keep her dream alive.

She takes his hand and squeezes it. For the first time in weeks, she feels hope. If this man can make a snowman in September, maybe he can bring her other miracles as well.


End file.
